


do you even care that you might be wrong?

by nosecoffee



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: (no comfort here move along), AU where the Murphy's knew Evan was lying from Day 1, Angst, Anxiety, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Connor's still dead, Dancer Connor, Depression, Forgive Me, Gen, Grief, Hurt, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I need to write some Heidi seriously, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury, It's Almost Midnight, Lies, Recreational Drug Use, Repetition, Sorry guys, Suicide mention, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Verbal Abuse, Weed, Weird writing Style, Whassup it's another Murphy fic, what an underrated lady
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 16:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10903251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: The Murphy's know a lot of things (probably more than you think they do).The Murphy's don't say a lot of things (probably a lot of things that they want to).





	do you even care that you might be wrong?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Good For You' from Dear Evan Hansen
> 
> I don't know guys

"It was an emergency landing." Larry says, but there's no humour in his voice.

What he doesn't say is that immediately after said emergency landing, Zoe started crying, so Connor dove into the creek to get it.

What he doesn't say is that Connor went under and didn't come back up.

What he doesn't say is that Larry had to dive in after Connor, and grab him from under the murky water, and grab the plane, and tug him back up into the grass.

What he doesn't say is that Connor hit his head under the water and got a severe concussion, and that's why they never went there again.

(What he doesn't say is that they sued the place and had it closed down.)

~

"It doesn't sound like Connor." Cynthia says, and it's the most truthful thing she's said since his death.

What she doesn't say is that she knows he's lying immediately, that he faked all of the emails, because Connor hadn't said "I love you" in literal years.

What she doesn't say is that Connor never addressed rage when it came to drugs, about how he claimed, at the beginning, that it was supposed to mellow him out.

What she doesn't say is that she was always too scared to go upstairs and calm Connor down when he was standing the hallway, screaming at the top of his lungs through the door Zoe had barricaded.

What she doesn't say is that she used to sit in her room and cry because no mother should be afraid of her child.

What she doesn't say is that she knows Connor couldn't have written these emails, couldn't have written that note, because Connor hardly spoke to them anymore before it happened, so why would he feel isolated from them, when he had isolated himself?

(What she doesn't say is that the moment it was Zoe screaming, and not Connor, she _knew.)_

~

"Did he say anything else?" Zoe asks, scooting across the bed.

What she doesn't say is that she knows he's lying, knows that none of it's true.

What she doesn't say is that she loved her brother, but after the incident at the creek, he hadn't been the same.

What she doesn't say is that after he got out of hospital, Larry yelled at him, told him he was _so stupid._

What she doesn't say is that Connor blamed her.

What she doesn't say is that every day after that he'd find some reason to attempt to bash down her door, screaming that he was going to kill her.

What she doesn't say is that he'd nitpick anything, _anything,_ for a reason.

What she doesn't say is that the weed just made it worse.

What she doesn't say is that the night where the screaming didn't come, she knew something was wrong, and though she was terrified, she crossed the hall.

What she doesn't say is that Connor hadn't come down for dinner in ages, that she had no reason to be knocking on his door and asking if he was alright.

(What she doesn't say is that the night he didn't start screaming, she did.)

~

"I didn't realise Connor meant this much to people." Larry says, looking up at Evan and his entourage.

What he doesn't say is that he knows these kids barely knew Connor at all.

What he doesn't say is that he's not dumb, and that he saw the Twitter thread that this Beck girl put up about Connor, about their _close acquaintanceship._

What he doesn't say is that he notices the way Evan's bespectacled friend, Jared, won't meet any of their eyes, like he feels guilty about something, like he thinks if he looks up he'll be caught out.

What he doesn't say is that he sees that Evan is one hell of an actor, one hell of a good liar, but that he also sees that Jared is an awful one.

What he doesn't say is that he knows that Alana isn't faking a damn thing.

What he doesn't say is that he knows the only thing she could possibly be faking is her smile.

(What he doesn't say is that he knows she's faking everything, but she's not lying.)

~

"He wasn't invited to a single one." Cynthia says.

What Cynthia doesn't tell him is that with each party that went past, each party that Connor wasn't invited to, he got sadder and sadder.

What Cynthia doesn't tell him is that he shut himself up in his room for days and Cynthia used to sit outside his room, back against his door, listening to him sniffle and sob, knowing there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say to calm him, to soothe him.

What Cynthia doesn't tell him is that she had to break down his door after a week, because she couldn't hear him crying anymore, and she was terrified.

(What Cynthia doesn't tell him is that the minute she made it upstairs, to find Zoe collapsed on the carpet of Connor's bedroom, she knew what she'd find.)

~

"You've given me my brother back." Zoe tells him, and reaches for him.

What she doesn't say is that he's given her a brother she lost.

What she doesn't say is that she doesn't recognise this boy.

What she doesn't say is that the divide that had grown between her and Connor had been so wide that she hardly recognised the boy Evan was presenting her with.

What she doesn't say is that she only learned guitar so that Connor would have something to dance to, and when he started changing, she started neglecting music all together.

What she doesn't say is that when he didn't show up to her last concert, she was almost distraught because he was the reason she joined in the first place.

What she doesn't say is that even looking at her guitar now makes her feel sick, because it reminds her of all the times she'd sit on his bed and play for him, while he improvised a little number for her.

(What she doesn't say is that the night she stormed into his room to see why he wasn't screaming at her, for once, she'd knocked over his tap shoes and sent them clattering, and it just made her scream louder.)

~

When the betrayal comes (and it comes on faster than any of them expected) none of them are surprised.

They all knew he was lying from the get-go.

Cynthia thinks she needed a scapegoat, and that's why she contacted Evan in the first place.

The rain is coming down hard on the roof. Evan appears in the kitchen while they're fighting, while they're yelling, and he's soaked to the bone, and he looks terrified and guilty, and it's been going on too long to give up the game and tell him that the all knew all along how much he was lying, so they let him stand there and cry and let loose, and it knocks some sense into them that this happened, that Connor is gone, that no matter how they pretend, how much they lay their hopes and dreams on some boy who was caught in the crossfire, who Connor accidentally used as a shield, he's never coming back.

Cynthia's the first to lose it. Maybe she convinced herself that the version of Connor that Evan presented them with was the Connor they knew, or something, but she's denying everything he says like she believed him once.

She's running out of the room before Evan can go on more about how he just wanted to pretend for a moment that everything was okay.

Zoe's next, overcome, in a jolt that wracks her whole body and leaves her reeling, with a realisation that the brother who'd loved her enough to dive into a creek for her didn't exist, and hadn't for a long, long time. That her father had pulled a completely different person out of the water. She wishes he had never broken the surface, and she doesn't know whether she means in diving in, or being pulled back out.

Larry just stands there, staring at Evan. He knows he's not a model parent - far from it - but he can't help but think that Connor perhaps deserved better than this legacy.

That maybe no legacy us better than a fake one. Larry watches Evan run from the house, out into the rain, and wonders idly if the kid's going home. Wonders, absently, where the kid is going.

Larry sits down, heavily.

In their pretending, in their misery, something horrible was born, and this was what was left.

An empty house, loud with unforgiving rain slamming into the roof. A dark house, a broken one.

No longer a home, with no way to return.

Larry puts his head in his hands because there's no dragging Connor out of the water this time.

**Fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this (if not, even better, this is a sad fic). If you did (or didn't, in this case), please feel free to leave a comment and/or a kudos, and hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee.
> 
> Again, thank you.


End file.
